


death of a blue bird and the people who failed her

by Dandybear



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Other, POV Alternating, Teacher-Student Relationship, This Game Really Dropped the Fucking Ball on Discussing the Issues it Brought Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 20:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5979643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandybear/pseuds/Dandybear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The window of finding a missing girl before you’re looking for a corpse is about forty-eight hours. It’s Tuesday morning and Rachel Amber didn’t come home last night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	death of a blue bird and the people who failed her

**Author's Note:**

> This story deals with a lot of triggering subject matter, though nothing more or less triggering than what occurs in the actual game. The only thing that might come out of left field is the implication of incestuous child abuse towards Rachel. That's kind of a Twin Peaks reference and kind of an unfortunate reality.
> 
> Officer Tucci is the cop from Episode 2. I gave him a name because he doesn't have a given one.
> 
> I guess this is about all the wrong decisions that had to have been made by the adults in Rachel's life when she disappeared. They failed her.

“I wish I lived in the 90’s like you.” Her lips make a cherry pucker around her cherry joint.

 

Mark mops up the mess they left on his lap, sits up, and lights a cigarette. Her candy weed is always too sweet and makes him feel nauseous. Ash fills his lungs and he can breathe.

 

“The 90’s were great. The best music, the best art, and the best drugs. Everything’s so watered down now in comparison. I saw Nirvana playing at dive bars in Seattle back in the day. I knew they were gonna be great if they didn’t sell out.”

 

Rachel throws an arm against the pillows, revealing the nautical star on the pulse point of her wrist.

 

“I would totally have had a threeway with Courtney and Kurt back in the day,” She laughs.

 

Mark scoffs, “You know she murdered him, right?”

 

Rachel looks at him under tawny eyelashes. She’s so adoring and open like this, but her eyes are troubled.

 

“I used to believe it because my dad’s friend who sells record would always talk about that. That, the Hollywood Hit Squad, and how Zionists rule the world. But,” She takes a toke, “I talked to Joyce about it. She said ‘Men always gotta blame a woman for taking away their toys.’ I mean, is it so hard to believe that a guy who wrote a song called ‘I Hate Myself and Want to Die’ hated himself and wanted to die?”

 

Mark rolls to the edge of the bed to grab his pants.

 

“You weren’t there.” He says.

 

“No, I wasn’t.”

 

He clears his throat and redresses, hoping she’ll take the hint and follow his lead.

 

“‘Better to burn out than fade away’. I don’t know if I believe that.” Rachel says.

 

She snuffs out her joint.

 

* * *

  
  


The window of finding a missing girl before you’re looking for a corpse is about forty-eight hours. It’s Tuesday morning and Rachel Amber didn’t come home last night.

 

There was no tell tale scrape of converse on roof tiles alerting the rest of the house that she was climbing in through Chloe’s window. Bowers emerged from his POS RV looking haggard as usual, but alone.

 

David enters the police station to the usual morning bustle of activity. Blue uniforms milling about with wide yawns and cups of Starbucks.

 

“Rachel Amber is missing.” He says.

 

The woman on duty at the front desk looks up him with wary eyes. She’s searching his face before her eyes drop to his nametag. Then her mouth folds.

 

His reputation proceeds him.

 

“Her parents haven’t reported anything, Mr.” She says pointedly, “Madsen.”

 

Great, now he’s gotta have a dick measuring contest with This Little Piggy.

 

“Yeah, well she doesn’t spend a lot of time at their house.”

 

“How would you know this?” She looks at him from under thick brows.

 

David feels the blood rush to his ears and cheeks, his moustache twitches a tell of the grimace under it.

 

“I do surveillance at the school. That’s where her dorm is.”

 

“And she hasn’t come back to her dorm or her room at her parents’ house? Anywhere she could sleep over?” She’s looking at Rachel’s file and her voice drops on the end of the sentence.

 

“No.” He cuts through the accusation.

 

He glances up at the clock. Last log of Rachel’s whereabouts has her leaving the Two Whale’s Parking lot around 11:30.

 

Thirty six hours remain.

 

“Has she been missing for twenty-four hours?” She clears her throat.

 

“In another twelve hours she might be dead.” He slaps the desk.

 

“Have you spoken with her parents, Mr. Madsen?”

 

Tucci and Berry come in with coffee.

 

“Oh, hey Madsen.” Tucci says.

 

“What’s up David?” Berry says.

 

“Rachel Amber is missing.”

 

“Is that so?” Berry chews his crueller. 

 

“Are you sure she’s not just visiting the reservation? Are there any concerts in Portland tonight?” Tucci offers.

 

When David turns to him Tucci avoids his eyes, instead quite fixated on the plastic lid on his coffee cup. He’s rubbing lipstick off the rim with the pad of his thumb. Strokes back and forth.

 

“If she were then Chloe would be gone too.” David’s voice raises.

 

The awareness that an entire room is looking at him like a madman doesn’t sit well in his gut.

 

“I guess we’ll have to put out an… Amber Alert.” The cop behind the desk can’t hide her snort.

 

The wind outside is picking up and the sky is a pale grey. Nothing new about today except the missing girl who nobody seems to be missing much.

 

* * *

 

Rachel sleeps over on weekdays. Her presence becomes a staple of the household like Chloe’s thrashing rebellion and David grumbling over his newspaper. Rachel always eats what they’re having and does the dishes afterwards. Her long hair goes up at the back of her head, tight like a cheerleader.

 

Like it has since Chloe brought her home with wind dusted cheeks and a raw smile. Joyce watched Rachel reach into her purse for a little sheet of pills and take one with her morning coffee every day since she was fifteen. It’s always felt like she was the one dry swallowing a pill.

 

Rachel’s sleepovers have spaced from every night to once a week, but Joyce doubts she’s gotten homesick all of a sudden.

 

She knows the look in Rachel’s eyes. It isn’t the look of someone who can sleep anywhere and feel safe. It’s her at sixteen staring at the little pink plus sign in a gas station bathroom. It’s familiar like the tightness of William’s grip when she told him.

 

Rachel and Chloe are not destined girlfriends or even best friends forever material. She sees that break up coming around the corner with its high beams on.

 

But she expects damage. The wreckage and the two drivers screaming at each other before going separate ways.

 

Not this… woosh.

 

She hasn’t been a praying woman since she watched her father’s house disappear in the rearview mirror of William’s car, but she hopes to God that she’ll see Rachel Amber again.

 

Her breath has been caught in her diaphragm all day. David’s texts have been monosyllabic and upstairs there’s keening music and Chloe’s stomping boots.

 

Clomp, clomp, clomp down the stairs. Keys jingling.

 

“Chloe, where are you going?”

 

The door slams.

 

* * *

  
  


Staples is out of red binders. Red fucking binders. It’s Staples. It’s the brand’s colour.

 

“Sir, could I offer you some in a burgundy or black?”

 

“It’s an organizational issue. Without the red it will look like it holds more or less significance than the others.”

 

“Some people like to separate subjects by colour.”

 

The clerk is left talking to dead air. Automatic doors swish and Mark pauses seven feet from the entrance to light a cigarette. Dirt is caked under his nails and the buzz of his phone against his ass is another urgent text from Nathan he’s not going to respond to.

 

It rings.

 

Fucking shitass spoiled brat.

 

Arcade Fire blares through the speakers as he turns on the engine and he kills it with a finger. Rachel loved this band. Something about seeing them at Rifflandia and how the lead singer looked right at her. Blah, blah, blah self-absorbed teenage ramblings.

 

The same storefronts from twenty years ago whiz by. This town is such a fucking waste. Same shit different day ad nauseum.

 

Back in the day at least the Vortex Club parties were fun. Now they’re just filled with fakes. Little kids popping candy thinking they can be better wastes of skin than their mommies and daddies.

 

Only a few exceptions come to mind. Rachel with her starkness. A chameleon who kept her appearance despite her uncanny ability to blend in. Oh how it felt to peel it all away.

 

His phone buzzes again then goes to Sean’s ringtone.

 

“Hello.”

 

“You fucked up again, Mark.” The fingers holding his cigarette shake against the wheel.

 

“Your son fucked up, Sean.”

 

“My son is not the adult supervisor for your little peep show. If this is Deanna all over again I don’t know if I can keep your name out of the papers this time.”

 

“Sean, after all these years do you think I can’t handle a dead girl?”

 

The line goes silent.

 

“Nathan said she went missing.” There’s an exhale.

 

“Left out that detail did he?”

 

He can see the look on Sean’s face. It’s as close to a grimace as the man gets. Toad lips pulled away from his cigar, eyes caught in the reflection of his glasses, double chin folded up like a wallet.

 

“I’ll have to up his meds.” Sean finally says.

 

“Are we done?” Mark grinds out.

 

“If this gets out you and me are fucking done. No more funding for your little jerk off sessions, I wash my hands of you.”

 

Mark pulls into the parking lot of the strip mall closest to the beach. He rolls down the window and lets his head hit the back of the seat.

 

“You say this every time.”

 

“I mean it. Pan Estates is my number one priority right now and I don’t need you or Nathan jeopardizing it.”

 

“Does that mean you’re finally putting the mad dog down?” Mark rubs plaque off a bottom tooth in the rearview.

 

“Mark, you’re expendable. He’s not. Don’t forget it.”

 

The phone cuts off, the modern slamming of a receiver.

 

Seven text messages from Nathan. He drops his phone on the front seat and leaves it there. If some punk steals it he’ll be grateful.

 

Lighthouse Stationery: Serving Arcadia Bay Since 1966!  At least has red binders. The impulse is there to mark the spine with a name written in black. Rachel was only last night and he’s still sated, but the rush gets shorter every year. It’s gone from a full meal to the emotional and sexual equivalent of Chinese food. So bloated for twenty minutes, but he’s sticking his head in the fridge for leftovers already.

 

* * *

 

“Alyssa.”

 

“Here.”

 

“Rachel.”

 

Twenty pairs of eyes slide to the empty desk missing the star of this scene.

 

“Has anyone seen Ms. Amber?” Shannon Hoyta says.

 

She feels her stomach bottom out.There’s something off about today. Something that makes her grab the edge of the desk while her eyes skirt the classroom, hoping Rachel will pop out, late, but unharmed.

 

Rachel, despite her reputation in the staff room, is a delight to have in class. She’s a constant fixture of the middle back row and her homework will be on the desk on time with her trademark loopy writing.

 

Her desk is empty and the report due today is missing.

 

“Has anyone checked the gas station bathroom’s glory hole?” Victoria Chase pipes up with.

 

This nasty little girl with her bubblegum mouth and her hard little eyes smirks as the murmur of laughter goes through the classroom.

 

“Victoria, stand in the hall.”

 

She hears ‘such a bitch’ on the girl’s breath as she steps outside.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Despite the obvious ‘no skating, no loitering’ sign on the gas station stucco there are a trio of young men with boards in the parking lot. The gas station itself doubles as a Sparkle Brite laundromat-slash-arcade. 

 

At the sight of their cruiser pulling into the parking lot, the boys take their boards inside the laundromat.

 

Berry exhales before entering after them.

 

The boys are shooting him angry looks. Furrowed brows and folded arms.

 

“Hey man, we weren’t doing anything. We’re just waiting for Trev’s laundry. See?” Justin, the blond one, points to a machine.

 

“Relax, I’m not here to bust you guys. I have a few questions.”

 

Their posture stays defensive. Berry sighs and has a seat in one of the off-white plastic chairs.

 

“When was the last time any of you saw Rachel Amber?” He says.

 

It’s Trevor who answers, “Yesterday… in Calc I think. Maybe the diner last night?”

 

“Time is an illusion, Man.” The third one (Cody?) says.

 

Berry closes his eyes to avoid rolling them.

 

“Did you see who Rachel was with?” He says.

 

Trevor scratches the thin patch of facial hair he has on his chin.

 

“I think she was waiting for somebody. She looked alone, but not wanting company, if that makes sense.”

 

Berry writes that down.

 

“Do you remember the time?”

 

Trevor and Justin exchange a look. Reaching a silent agreement, Trevor sighs and checks his phone, flipping it open.

 

“I left at like 10.” He says.

 

“And Rachel was still there?” Berry says.

 

“I think so? I wasn’t really looking for her.”

 

“Thank you, boys. Trevor, one more thing. You know Rachel’s father right?” Berry pauses to look up at them.

 

Trevor rubs his bicep.

 

“Yeah, I work on his boat in the summer.”

 

His face is dark and he looks like he’s curling in on himself. Berry doesn’t need to ask further about that, Hank Amber’s been in enough times for fighting that he can assume the attitude isn’t just for when he’s drunk.

 

“Do you know if Rachel stays at her dad’s place often? Like, could she be there right now?”

 

Trevor purses his lips and keeps his eyes on his spinning clothing.

 

“Doubt it. The old man says she only comes around when she needs money or to borrow the car.”

 

Berry stands up, putting away his notepad.

 

“Thanks again for your cooperation, boys. It makes my job easier.”

 

“If you go by Hank’s, don’t tell him I told you anything.” Trevor says.

 

“I protect my witnesses.” Berry lets the door swing behind him.

 

He grimaces. A trip to Hank Amber’s house is never high on his list of ‘favourite things to do’.

 

* * *

 

Teaching science class at the highschool level is like pulling teeth. Blackwell is a step above the public school issue of teenagers acting like wild children, or simply dialing it in. Children are bright, but get traumatized away from science at a young age. Girls get discouraged from pursuing fields with heavy amounts of math or lab time. Boys get picked on by their athletic peers.

 

To be fair, this is an art school. Most of the intake is more interested in drama. Both in the classroom and out.

 

She doesn’t take it personally when Nathan Prescott shows up half an hour to class reeking of sweat and the chemical aftersmell of cocaine. His skin is pale green and the thin ridges under his eyes are purple like a bruise.

 

Not for the first time, she wishes she had one of those alarm buttons under her desk like they do in retail stores and banks. 

 

He collapses into his chair. Immediately, his knee is rattling the table. 

 

Michelle takes a deep breath, working through the anxiety bubbling inside her ribcage.

 

Nathan is a troubled boy, the whole faculty know this. It’s on the Staff Room bulletin, for Christ’s sake. This though, this isn’t standard Nathan Prescott bullshit. She feels this drop like a stone in her gut.

 

“For homework, you’ll be doing page 148, questions 1-4, a and c. I’m sorry, it’s a lot, but the school board requires it. You can work on it for the rest of class and ask any questions you need. My office hours are still from 4-6, Monday through Friday.”

 

“What the fuck are you looking at, Fagtard?!” Nathan yells at a girl.

 

Tiffany, who’s gawking at him over her text book.

 

“Mr. Prescott. Watch your language.” Michelle says.

 

“I need to go to the bathroom.” He says.

 

Nathan doesn’t come back for the rest of class. She’s relieved.

 

* * *

 

“Reservation girls go missing all the time. I’d check there myself, but it’s wild wild west out there.” The Chief says.

 

“She was a student at Blackwell, Sir.”

 

“Have you checked Blackwell? School’s old and there are lots of places to hide.”

 

Berry rolls his lips. Yeah, Madsen rings the alarm bell over every little thing but the flippance of a missing girl isn’t sitting right. It’s roiling around in his bile.

 

“How long has she been missing?” The Chief rubs his eyebrows.

 

“Twenty hours.”

 

“Are you kidding me? We’ve had missing dogs turn up after more time.”

 

Berry swallows the statistics of the risks to a young woman versus a dog when they go missing.

 

“Yes sir.”

 

“Tell her parents to put up posters. I’ll keep you and Tucci on it to keep Madsen off my ass.”

 

“Yes sir.”

 

The sun just can’t seem to climb over the clouds today. Tucci is obviously on his phone when he arrives back at his desk. He shoves it away like a guilty secret.

 

“Texting your mistress?” Berry says with a smile.

 

Tucci’s laugh is too loud.

 

“Yeah right, just checking with my contacts to see if anyone’s seen Rachel in the past twenty-four. She was talking about leaving for California soon. Last seen at the Two Whales.”

 

“Joyce working last night?”

 

“Norma.” Tucci says quickly, “Says she saw Rachel get into a red pickup.”

 

Berry bites his lip.

 

Fuck. Fucking Prescotts. It hits him all like waves over the rocks. The Chief assigning him, his flippance. Another runaway, another case he’s officially on but each move wrapped in tape.

 

It boils up and manifests in the incredibly pathetic display of shoving papers off his desk.

 

“Fuck.”

 

“What?” Tucci says.

 

“I gotta go for a drive.” Berry shoulders on his jacket.

 

“Visiting your mistress?” Tucci says.

 

“You bet.” Berry says.

  
  


“Mr. Madsen, you are the school’s security guard. Now, I appreciate your initiative in student safety, but that does not mean you get to leave your job to personally make a police investigation.”

 

David always stands stock still at attention, stone faced. Ray watches his Adam’s Apple bob, the only tell David has of nerves.

 

“You say Ms. Amber has been missing since last night? How are you sure?”

 

“I… she was accused of pushing drugs.”

 

Ray sighs through his nose, “Were you stalking one of the students?”

 

“Surveilling.”

 

“Jesus, David. You do know this makes you a suspect?”

 

His moustache bristles but he nods, “I have nothing to hide. It would be a waste of time. That girl has been missing for twenty-two hours now.”

 

“Ms. Amber is a wild child. Perhaps she took a flight of fancy down the coast.”

 

David slams his palm against the table, “Why is everyone denying that a teenage girl missing should be something to worry about? She’s one of your students and she could be in someone’s blast freezer.”

 

“Mr. Madsen, I know you’ve seen active combat, but back here in the United States things aren’t so dramatic.”

 

“Bull. Shit. Green River Killer, Pig Farmer, Olson, they all lived on the west coast. Girls went missing for years and no one did anything. We might have a serial killer on the loose.”

 

Ray rubs his temples.

 

“Thus far one girl has been missing for less than a day. Keep an eye on the girl’s dorm tonight for Rachel. Maybe she’ll come back from a day long bender and it’ll be mystery solved. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m heading home.”

 

* * *

 

It’s past nine by the time David walks in the door. Joyce is half-watching the news while doing the dishes. It’s Chloe’s turn, but she came home to Rage Against the Machine pounding from upstairs and decided to avoid confrontation.

 

“I brought home some chicken.” David says.

 

He holds up the bucket and Joyce sighs. It’s like a normal day except they’re all waiting for news. Good or bad. Where is she?

 

“Chloe! There’s food!” She yells from the bottom of the stairs.

 

The stairs creak with each step Chloe takes down. She’s freshly showered and her roots are stark and a sickly yellow-green. Her eyes are read and heavy, she hopes it’s from crying and not reefer. 

 

She sets the dishes out around the table, passing cutlery as David disassembles the bucket of chicken and fries.

 

Chloe scowls while scooping out her coleslaw, refusing to thank David or acknowledge him.

 

Joyce holds her breath, waiting for David’s nightly prodding asking Chloe if she’s found a job or a college yet.

 

“Chloe, have you heard from Rachel?” He says instead.

 

“No. Should I have?” She says around a fry.

 

Joyce is having difficulty swallowing her chicken. It must be too dry. She takes a hard sip of water.

 

“It seems that no one’s seen or heard from her all day.”

 

“Beats me, I’m not her fucking keeper.” Chloe snorts.

 

“Yeah, but it’s not like she has a huge list of houses she sleeps at all the time!” David fires back.

 

Joyce sighs, “I think I remember her saying she wanted to visit her aunt in Chino.”

 

“That was next month. God, Mom, it’s like you don’t even listen.” Chloe says.

 

“Don’t talk that way to your mother!” David slams his fist on the table.

 

“You’re not my dad, David! You can’t tell me to do shit!” Chloe rises.

 

“Chloe, please.” Joyce puts a hand out towards her daughter.

 

“Oh yeah! Take his side, like you always do! I don’t know why I even bothered.” 

 

Chloe keeps the drumstick in her hand as she puts on her boots and leaves through a slammed door.

 

Joyce lets her face sink into her hands and rubs her temples. Just one day, just one fucking day of peace is all she asks for. One day of not creeping around on the minefield of eggshells left around by husband and daughter. She wishes she could be like William and just say the right thing to make everyone laugh it off.

 

“Rachel is missing.” David says.

 

He’s eating chicken and potatoes like Chloe didn’t just storm out.

 

“I’m sure she’ll turn up.” Joyce says, reassuring herself more than anything.

 

“If the cops keep fucking the dog on this, then the way she’ll turn up is strangled and dumped in some ravine. Or, maybe as bone fragments in animal feed like that sick fuck North of the border.”

 

“David.”

 

He looks at her and frowns. Joyce can feel the tears streaming down her face, ruining her mascara. She pushes her plate away due to the sudden nausea. 

 

She lies awake all night thinking about bodies in ravines and finding a shredded blue earring in a pig pen.

 

* * *

 

The driveway up to the Prescott’s house is long and winding through the woods. Long enough to get lost, or that escaping on foot would be impossible if pursued.

 

These thoughts always invade Berry’s thoughts, now it’s tainted by the mental image of Rachel running up this driveway in bare bleeding feet.

 

The flood light turns on as his car rolls up to the house. Berry swallows hard and checks his gun before getting out.

 

The light around the Prescott house always seems funny, too green, too pink. Like overexposed photos. 

 

His boots are loud on the stairs leading up to the door. A shadow blocks the flood light and Berry looks up.

 

Sean Prescott is backlit, leaning against the porch railing with a glass in one hand and cigar in the other.

 

“Hey Berry, I thought I told you to call before coming.” Sean says.

 

“I was in the neighbourhood.” Berry says.

 

“Well, can I get you a drink?”

 

“I’m on duty, and here to ask a few questions.”

 

Sean laughs. The closer Berry gets the more he can smell sour breath and ash.

 

“A local girl hasn’t been heard from for a day. Rachel Amber. Have you heard of her?”

 

“Berry, I’m a married man. I don’t shit where I eat.” Sean says.

 

Berry blinks at him.

 

“If I were going to party with teenage girls, it wouldn’t be in my home town. You’d be better off asking Nathan, but you’re not allowed.”

 

Having a lead dangled over him and nothing to do about it.

 

“Sure you don’t want that drink?” Sean blows a mouthful of smoke in Berry’s face.

 

“I gotta get back to the station. If I leave Tucci alone nothing gets done.” Berry sighs.

 

He’s taking heavy steps down the stairs when Sean speaks again.

 

“Say, who was it that reported the girl missing?”

 

“School security guard. David Madsen.” Berry says, unsure if he should be sharing that information.

 

“Madsen, huh? Gotta sting that the only police dog with his nose to the ground isn’t actual law enforcement. Makes a concerned citizen like me wonder what it is the piggies are up to.”

 

“Good night, Mr. Prescott.”

 

Berry speeds up the driveway, coughing up smoke like it’s strangling him from the inside. He pulls over once far enough away to see the lights of town. Berry tries to take a deep breath, but all he gets are shallow pants. He pounds the steering wheel and chokes out a scream.

 

* * *

 

Crystal Amber reports her daughter missing the second day of no responses to text messages. Most of her messages from Rachel are dated sporadically, a ‘Can I borrow the car?’ or ‘Are you at your dad’s?’ once a month. 

 

Yesterday Joyce Price called saying that David said Rachel wasn’t at school and no one had heard from her.

 

“Joyce, I’ve been waiting for that girl to run away since she turned fifteen. She’s a wild child, like me or you when we were young. She’s gotta pull a Stevie and go her own way.”

 

The line was quiet,

 

“Crys, I left home because I couldn’t live there anymore.” Joyce said.

 

“Course, your parents stifled you.”

 

Joyce sighs into the receiver, “Have you asked Blaine if he’s seen her?”

 

“Why would Blaine have seen Rachel?” Crystal asked, tone dropping.

 

“She might have swung by when you were out.” Joyce said delicately.

 

“She’s been planning on leaving. She thinks she’s being discrete, but a mother knows. She has a secret boyfriend. I bet that she either ran away with him or is having a romantic getaway.”

 

“If you’re sure.”

 

“I’m sure. She’ll be back before you know it.” Crystal said.

 

She said goodbye to Joyce and then texted Rachel with a ‘wear r u?’. 

 

No response since then. Rachel is a flake, but she always gets back to Crystal within a few hours, even if she’s high and all she sends is a series of smilies.

 

Sleep didn’t come last night. Blaine got in at four and she let the words stick to her teeth.

 

This morning, they fall out while they share the mirror.

 

“Have you seen Rachel?”

 

“Why would I have seen Rachel?” He says.

 

Blaine’s so beautiful. Blonde hair, tan skin, a little bit of dark stubble and soulful grey eyes. He looks like the surfer version of Kurt Cobain. She’d know his skinny frame anywhere from the surf shop her runs to coming out of her daughter’s bedroom in the middle of the night.

 

She levels him with a tight mouthed stare.

 

“No one’s seen her.” She says.

 

“What? No. I’m sure she’s just partying in the city.”

 

Blaine’s so ugly with his gappy teeth and glazed eyes. He stinks like weed and wet dog, he’s always late with rent. All the girls he hires to work at the surf shop are doe-eyed teenagers looking for summer work. 

 

“She would have told me.” Crystal says.

 

* * *

 

Tucci pulls up to Hank Amber’s porch and takes a deep breath before exiting the car. What a bullshit day for Berry to call in sick. Now he’s gotta go into the reserve with no back up. To confront the town rageaholic. Who owns a gun.

 

He sees the curtains move as he unbuckles his seat belt. Another deep breath, open the door. He avoids a hole in the stairs leading up to the screen door.

 

Inside some dogs start barking and snarling like crazy. He swallows hard and knocks, rattling the metal.

 

There’s grumbling and footsteps, followed by yelling and the dogs quieting down.

 

Hank wrenches the door open and stands there, looking tired and pissed off.

 

“‘The fuck do you want?” He says.

 

“I’m uh, looking for Rachel.” Tucci wishes he could take back that stammer and voice crack.

 

“She ain’t here.” Hank sniffs hard.

 

“Then she’s missing.”

 

He pauses, scrutinizing Tucci between the wire holes.

 

“What do you mean she’s missing?”

 

“No one has seen or heard from her in over twenty-four hours.” Tucci says.

 

Hank rubs his face harder, “Fuck. Fucking fuck. She’s dead. My daughter is dead.”

 

“Sir, there’s no sign of that.” Tucci says.

 

“I can read between the lines. What the fuck do you think happens to every teenage girl that goes missing around here?” He points around him.

 

“You pigs don’t give a shit about missing Indian girls, but my daughter’s white enough for you to care.”

 

“Sir, we take every missing person case seriously.” Tucci says.

 

“Then what about Megan Wheeler? Her parents reported her missing six months ago.”

 

Tucci blanches and looks at his radio, “That was never reported to our division.”

 

“‘Course not, ‘reservation girls run away all the time’ is what your boss told her mum.”

 

Tucci worries his lip, “Do you have anyone to confirm your whereabouts on the night of the twenty-second?”

 

“I was at the bar and everyone there can vouch for me. If you want anything else it can be through my lawyer.”

 

The door slams in Tucci’s face and he sighs with relief.

 

“Who the hell is Megan Wheeler?” He says.

 

* * *

 

Joyce comes home from the diner to find Chloe in the kitchen for a change.

 

“Chloe?” She says.

 

She stands in the doorway, wary of confrontation, but offering her a way out.

 

When Chloe lifts her head Joyce can see it’s coated in tears.

 

“Mom, I can’t find Rachel.”

 

“Honey, no one can find Rachel.” Joyce puts her keys down.

 

“I’m different, Mom! She would tell me if she was running away! I’d know! She’d tell me.”

 

“Chloe, Rachel… she was a lot of different things to different people.” 

 

“You don’t understand, she wouldn’t just leave! She’d tell me.” Chloe says.

 

Joyce looks at her daughter. This lost girl who is still too busy waiting for William to come home to live her life. She hitched those hopes and dreams to Rachel, and now she’s gone too. Another abandoning figure in her daughter’s cycle of arrested development.

 

She wishes Chloe could just talk to her about it so they could move forward.

 

But, not right now, her daughter needs her.

 

“Chloe, come here.”

 

Chloe’s tears stain Joyce’s blouse. She sniffs loudly and fists the fabric. 

 

The front door opens and she hears David come in. His boots are loud and he stands by the door to take them off. He hovers, eyes leveled with hers at the scene he’s walked in on.

 

David goes into the garage and closes the door.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, the dirt looks kinda fresh here.” He says.

 

The junkyard can only afford the two of them, and even then, they just compact the trash when they can. Funding’s low. Kids always party here anyway. It’s not safe, but they don’t even have the funding for proper security.

 

“Bowers brings his dog around here, probably digging up deer bones or whatever.” His boss says.

 

“Alright. It’s a pretty big hole.” He says.

 

“Well, Jesus, Randy, dig it up if you’re so curious.”

 

Randy folds his arms, “You’re right. Probably a new fire pit or whatever.”

 

“Damn kids need to be more careful around here. Someone could get killed.”


End file.
